


After Hours

by rayeliann



Series: A Small Fire in a Dark World [9]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Declarations Of Love, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Implied Sexual Content, Kissing, No Plot/Plotless, Nudity, Teasing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-09
Updated: 2015-04-09
Packaged: 2018-03-22 00:30:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3708573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rayeliann/pseuds/rayeliann
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ok, this is 100% plot-less self-indulgent sexy fluff.  It's a trainwreck of complete nonsense.  But it makes me very happy with the warm and fuzzies.  </p><p>Heads up to my ace friends - sexual content implied but not described.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After Hours

“Lady Trevelyan, I would very much like to kiss you.” Cullen’s voice was a low, husky whisper in the dark hallway. His face hovered inches from Hadynne’s, their noses brushing lightly.

The meeting in the War Room had run long, and it was late when things finally wrapped up. Leliana had disappeared almost immediately, and Josephine had settled back at her desk, nearly buried behind her papers. Cullen had caught Hadynne in the hallway to her room, just off of the Grand Hall. It was a bit improper for him to be there, if any of those damned Orlesians that had taken to loitering about had seen him follow the Inquisitor to her room…and at such a late hour! Well, there was sure to be talk.

Hadynne smiled coyly, walking slowly backwards, her shoulder trailing along the wall as she lead Cullen by only a few steps. His golden-brown eyes were alight and soft with admiration as he looked at her. She lured him further down the hall, still grinning impishly.

Hadynne finally stopped when she felt her back connect with the wooden door. Her hands spread behind her back, palms flat against the wood grain. Cullen had continued to slowly advance on her, until he had drawn himself up as close as he could without touching her.

Hadynne moved slow and serpentine, drawing back her shoulders and extending her neck in long, languid movements. She was practiced in the art of subtle, alluring movements and flirtatious body language - a skill she very much enjoyed using to fluster Cullen. Cullen’s gaze dropped down her neck, dragged over her collarbone, and stumbled over the smooth curve of her full bosom in a very flattering - very tight - very low cut dress.

Cullen wrapped a steady hand around her cinched waist, and brushed his nose against hers. He repeated his request.

“May I kiss you, Hadynne?” She liked that he asked, and her gaze flickered over the clenching muscles in his stubble-covered jaw. He held himself there, waiting for permission and practically quivering with anticipation. She smiled at the request- so well mannered, so proper, so controlled. His incredible self-control was one of the things that had drawn her to him in the first place. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t fun to see how far she could push it.

Hadynne sunk her teeth into her bottom lip, pulling at it as her eyes caught on Cullen’s golden ones. Her fingers found the latch on the door and she pushed it open, sliding into the stairwell that lead to her chambers. A flick of her perfectly shaped dark eyebrows and Cullen knew to follow, his eyes trained on her lips.

The heavy oaken door closed with a whoosh of air that caught the stray hairs framing Hadynne’s face. She slid the wooden bar into place with an audible snap! to keep anyone from interrupting them. It was late, but they had learned to be cautious.

Her delicate, sharp fingers trailed along the stone walls of the narrow stairwell. The sound of nails scraping stone sent chills up Cullen’s spine that mingled with the desire blossoming in his chest. Hadynne circled around Cullen slowly, her dark eyes- normally big, round, and innocent- glimmering mischievously. She held his gaze in a mesmerizing manner, almost like a python charming it’s prey.

Cullen shifted, turning with her - not because he was wary of having her at his back ( _alright, perhaps a little_ ), but because he felt a powerful sense of magnetism pulling him toward her, beckoning him in with a wrenching feeling twisting in his gut. Hadynne had that affect on him, and he would freely admit she had a strange, dark allure about her.

“Very well Commander.” Hadynne said softly, her eyes flicking from Cullen’s golden eyes to his lips.

Rather than snatching Hadynne in a quick, passionate kiss (as had admittedly become his custom), Cullen took his time in closing the distance between them. He moved in measured, deliberate movements, almost as if to say that two could play Hadynne’s wicked little game.

Drawing close, Cullen’s hand crept around Hadynne’s waist, his grip shaking ever so slightly as it tightened. The movement didn’t escape Hadynne, and the corner of her mouth quirked upward in intrigued amusement.

One finger from Cullen’s free hand traced up Hadynne’s arm, acoss her collarbone, along the graceful line of her neck, and found its way under her chin, tipping her head up gently. Hadynne’s smile had faded, her face bank in rapt attention. She caught the faintest echo of the ashy, slightly sweaty, oddly sweet scent she had come to associate with Cullen, and breathed in deeply. She felt her knees tremble weakly, and her mind began to fuzz at the edges. _How did he do that to her?_

Cullen’s mouth found hers slowly, the whisper of a kiss as his lips skipped over hers. There one moment - gone the next. Hadynne made the slightest of annoyed little noises. Teasing was not as fun when she was not the one doing it. But the lips returned, soft and ghostly, barely a kiss at all. This time though, they stayed.

Hadynne’s fingers curled around the neckline of Cullen’s breastplate impatiently. Her intention was to drag him closer, but he held her back with gentle hands on her upper arms. She rocked forward onto the tip-toes of her heeled-shoes. Her weight pressed against him for balance as she nipped at him, catching his bottom lip with the graze of her teeth.

This tore a low, involuntary groan from Cullen, as Hadynne had known it would. Lips crushed against hers, and Hadynne felt her thoughts slipping free of her mind as it went blank. Yes. This had been exactly what she had wanted. He kissed her hard now, hungry as the floodgates of his control let go. Hadynne’s shoulders connected hard with the stone wall, and Cullen gasped in surprise at the force of the collision. He tore himself away from her, concern (and embarrassment) coloring his face, eyes wide as he fell back into his gentle, unassuming persona.

“Hadynne! I’m so sorry, are you hurt? I shouldn’t have-” Hadynne cut short Cullen’s worried tones, pulling him hard against her, clearly no worse off.

Cullen felt himself pressing Hadynne into the wall, and vaguely worried if she could breath with the weight of him crushing her. She had ahold of him by the waistband of his trousers ( _how had she gotten through his layers so quickly?_ ), pulling him forward hips first. With a searing kiss, Hadynne claimed his mouth once more.

Cullen groaned into her kiss - she tasted like blackberries and she smelled like a thicket full of rosemary with the slightest hints of the Chantry candles lingering on her clothes.

Hadynne’s fingers traced the curve of his breeches, from the small of his back where he was most-sensitive, fingers cool against his suddenly hot skin. They wandered over his hips, dipping just slightly in the front where the breeches tied before slipping surreptitiously south. For a split second Cullen was breathless, shuddering against her in surprise. Her curious hands disappeared with the same stealthy speed they had shown up with.

There was a loosening at his shoulder, and Cullen felt the weight of his furry pauldrons lift from his shoulders. A solid whump! told him of their place on the floor. His chest-plate was next, and Hadynne snarled with frustration as her fingers fumbled with the straps that secured it to his body. Cullen might have chuckled under any other situation, but she was right. The hard, heavy metal piece had to go. _Immediately._

A few moments later (too many by Hadynne’s count), Hadynne was pulled tight against Cullen’s chest, and she could feel the heat of his skin through the thin linen shirt he wore - the last layer under all of that armor. She wondered if he could feel her heart fluttering like a trapped bird inside her ribcage.

Cullen’s honey-gold eyes were dark, his face flushed as he took a moment to look at her. Hesitant, clumsy hands pulled at the pins in her hair, sending it tumbling over her shoulders in a shining, fragrant auburn waterfall. The smell of rosemary was stronger now, and Hadynne looked softer, her pouting lips falling open as she stared back at him. Her ample chest heaved, straining hard against the bodice of her dress.

Cullen trailed soft, sucking kisses down her neck and over the swell of her breast, following the line of her dress. Her skin tasted faintly of almonds and something else… elfroot? Hadynne’s shoulder blades grated against the stone wall of the stairwell, her head lolling back. She’d known he liked that sort of neckline on her, as she’d caught his gaze drifting during meetings in the War Room. He was not alone in his appreciation, and she often found the distraction advantageous.

Hadynne’s leg curled around one of Cullen’s, and in a moment of abject spontaneity, he caught hold of it. She wrapped it around his waist, pulling him close with a murmur of approval as his hand found its way beneath her voluminous skirts, gripping her bare flesh. His hips ground against hers and there was no mistaking the hard heat between them.

Cullen’s hand crept higher under her skirt as he pressed her into the wall, His mouth finding hers once more. He deepened the kiss, and Hadynne let it happen, melting like jelly in his hands. Chills raced up her spine, sparking across a numb, mostly blank mind. His fingers danced over her, and her breath caught.

“Not here.” Hadynne gasped into his kiss, and Cullen froze obediently. The last semblances of Hadynne’s responsible, logical mind were shouting at her in fragmented, jumbled thoughts. She was the Inquisitor, she had an image to maintain. _Responsibilities_. A movement to lead. What had happened the other night on Cullen’s desk…In his OFFICE of all places. They were not teenagers, it had been reckless and irresponsible. Besides, what if someone heard them? What if someone found them? What if… Had she locked the door?

“Upstairs?” Cullen suggested, and to his credit, his voice only strained slightly, coming out in thick, husking tones. Hadynne nodded her approval, tossing the other leg around Cullen’s waist as he swept her up the stairs to her chambers. They left his armor on the floor at the bottom of the stairs, along with one of Hadynne’s intricately decorated black heels that had slipped off of her foot and tumbled down the stairs. She kicked the other off as they entered her room.

Cullen tossed Hadynne playfully into her bed, and she gasped at the sensation of being flung through the air so easily. She sunk into the soft bed, blankets wrinkling around her, her auburn hair messy, flung in every direction. Cullen pulled off his boots clumsily, wobbling as he fought to balance on one foot.

Hadynne found her own feet shakily, and impatient to be near Cullen again, she met him a few feet from her bed. Desperate fingers intertwined, his and hers, as Cullen bent to kiss her softly. She was pulling at his shirt, coaxing it up over his head. In the moonlight, his scars gleamed, pale and shiny against his golden skin. Muscles flexed as he reached for her, and Hadynne felt herself go weak at the knees again. She could sit and just watch him bend, twist, and flex for days if he would let her. _Maker,_ he was beautiful with his rumpled hair falling across his forehead, eyes like amber, and skin that held the sun in its lining.

Hadynne slipped away, not bothering to hide her admiring stare. She might have seemed powerful and confident if she had been able to grin at Cullen mischievously. If she had managed to hold onto that seductive mystique she seemed to be able to summon when she was ordering Orlesian nobles about. They way they fawned at her, falling over themselves to follow her every word. But no. No, Cullen cut right through that layer to something powerful, something so very real. And that terrified her. So instead, she stood there staring at him in utter disbelief, looking just a little awestruck, her pouting lips falling open in a dazed expression.

“Hadynne.” He moved - slow as not to startle her - like a sculpture coming to life. “Hadynne, what’s wrong?”

Hadynne felt a smile break over her face and she beamed up at him. “Not a thing my dear” she whispered, her voice a little shaky still, but she was stepping back, keeping Cullen just out of arm’s length. His head quirked to one side at this- curious what she was up to.

Hadynne slipped the thin straps of her dress over each arm slowly, untying the ribbon around her waist that held her bodice in place. Her hands snaked around her back to unhook the series of three buttons that secured that particular garment. In one fluid motion, Hadynne inhaled deeply and let her dress fall to the floor, pooling rather ungracefully in an irregular circle at her feet. There had been no reason for her to wear a breastband or a slip with that dress, so she stood clad only in her small clothes, wreathed in her long, auburn hair.

Cullen made a strangled sound in response, snatching her roughly into his arms before she could doubt her own actions, feel self conscious, or worry at the impropriety of it. Cullen made a strange, almost primal growl in the back of his throat as they stumbled backwards, through the curtains, and into her bed. Hadynne marveled at the feeling of her skin on his- she knew she ran hot, but with their bodies pressed close, Cullen was almost cool in comparison. She pressed her chest flat ( _well, as flat as could be expected_ ) against his, feeling his heart hammering away through his ribs. Her blood roared in her ears as she dug her fingers into his wavy, strawberry blonde hair. She wondered why he insisted on taming it - she liked it much better this way- wavy and rumpled, curls falling across his forehead- but she was not one to argue.

Cullen’s hands memorized the curves of Hadynne’s body - not just the obvious ones, but the little dips and rises that formed her arms, her stomach, her calves. He felt Hadynne tense, unexpectedly self-conscious, beneath him as he ran his hands over her stomach- not flat or muscled but delightfully soft.

“Cullen.” Hadynne’s voice was soft, barely a whisper, but he felt it echo in her chest beneath his lips. He kissed a soft, tickling line of kisses venturing down her body through the valley between her breasts, and over her sternum.

“Mmm?” He answered in kind, not bothering to halt his progress, as her tone had not been cautionary, and if she wished him to stop, she knew she need only say.

“Cullen, I love you.” Hadynne breathed, a thrill running through her. The syllables had run together, words tripping over each other to get out. But _there it was_. She had said it.

It wasn't the first time… she’d told him only once before, just after their first night together, and after he was coming out of another of his dreams. It had fallen out of her mouth so easily, so casually. She had certainly meant it, but it had felt strange to her. The words were foreign on her tongue. She wasn't entirely sure she’d ever said them to anyone before. At least, not since she had been taken away to join the Circle.

They hadn't mentioned it since, and she had been hesitant to use the words again. They still felt strange and alien on her tongue. What if he didn’t understand what they meant to her?

Cullen responded with a kiss so forceful it pushed the air right out of Hadynne’s lungs. Her vision swam with stars, and she felt his lips brushing her ear, hot breath tickling her face.

“And I love you, Hadynne.”


End file.
